April 13, 2014

This was an amazing and very busy week.  It was transfer week.  The top picture is of the 3 missionaries going home (Elder Mitchell, Sister Jensen and Sister Deeters) with Miriam, I and Sister Pettingill taken at the Boston Temple.  The second half of the picture is of the 6 incoming missionaries.  Their flight was routed through NY for some reason and they all come in at different times and some were very late.  This made for a very hard and long night Monday night. 
    The transfer meeting was wonderful and one of the largest we have ever had.  The three leaving missionaries gave wonderful golden truths.  Sister Deters talked of Change, Sister Jensen talked of Love, and Elder Mitchell talked of knowing that Jesus Christ lives and this is His work.

The pictures below is of our Montpellier Zone Conference we had just yesterday.  We got up early Saturday morning and drove to Essex Vermont.  It was held in the Stake Center.  We prepared lunch for them and then we had break out sessions where we were able to teach the missionaries.  Miriam and Sister Stoker taught them that "Cleanliness is next to Godliness".  A subject Miriam and I are so familiar with as we inspect their apartments as part of our duties.
    I taught them "The power of the Spirit in Conversion.  Elder Pettingill taught "Recognizing the promptings of the Spirit".  Sister taught "Praying with Faith".  I thought they all were excellent. 
    We then drove back to Bedford first stopping in Grantham NH to look at a potential apartment.  this was quite and adventure as we went to far down a dirt road and was worried about getting stuck in the mud.  But all went well and we made it.  We then stopped in Concord NH and had a wonderful dinner at UNOS Pizza.  It was great.
    Miriam is the mission secretary and she gets all the emergency phone calls.  She was called and notified that a missionaries father had suffered a massive stroke.  They wanted the missionary to be notified.  But then a little later she got a call again that Elder Harrington's father actually passed away from the stroke.  How sad!  Miriam tried and tried to call President Stoker so he could call Elder Harrington.  President Stoker was speaking in the Esssex VT Stake Conference and couldn't be reached.  Finally he called, Miriam delivered the sad news and President Stoker took it from there.
   We love all our missionaries.  They sacrifice and work hard.  I can only imagine what Elder Harrington is going through.  His father died while on vacation in the Bahamas totally unexpected.  We get notified quite often of a grandparent passing but this is the first time of a parent. 
   Thank goodness for the Gospel of Jesus Christ and knowledge we have of why we are here and where we are going. 
   I picked up 5 investigators for church today.  Gene is getting baptized in 2 weeks.  I have been able to teach him often with the Elders and I love it and him.  The work is wonderful.  We love do it!